


Postcards from Kavekana

by servantofclio



Category: Craft Sequence - Max Gladstone
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 10:00:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13051734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/servantofclio/pseuds/servantofclio
Summary: Teo and Cat navigate their partnership.(Missing scenes from Full Fathom Five. Spoilers for that book.)





	Postcards from Kavekana

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lilith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilith/gifts).



1.

_Weather’s great. So much sunshine!_

 

Cat stalked the streets of Kavekana under torrents of sunshine, beating down on her like a hammer she was supposed to be happy about. She inhaled air scented with palm trees and mango.

She missed Alt Coulumb air. Smoke, grit, an almost chewy feeling. Air that tasted like something, that worked its way into her lungs and her bones. She missed fucking _clouds_. Every day here, eternally sunny; every tropical sunset over in an eyeblink, leaving the island shrouded in velvet night.

Cat didn’t blend in here, exactly. She was too pale, too fair. Vendors kept pushing anti-sunburn charms on her. There were a lot more skeletons and random Iskari tourists roaming around than anyone with her particular complexion. But enough foreigners and strangers came to Kavekana that she didn’t stand out, either.

Not as long as she stayed strictly human, anyway.

The moon shone in the night sky, but the island’s wards kept it cool, remote, untouchable. Not even a glimmer of Seril’s face or an echo of her voice. Cat felt like something in a terrarium, domed in.

And the mountain loomed over everything.

Roaming through backstreets with laundry bleaching in the sun, she wondered how the Kavekanese got used to it, in the old days. The mountain at the center of everything, ready to spill fire and gods all over them. But then again, Coulumbites had got used to the Church of Kos, its great fiery machine pumping the city’s lifeblood with it. Maybe it was like that. Now the Kavekanese ran on fake gods and foreign soulstuff.

Guess everyone had to make a living somehow.

Some nights, Cat could almost taste the piece of Seril up there on the mountain, even though it was just as much out of her reach as the moon. She would have tried, but less than an hour on shore and the damned Penitents had given her the worst beating that she’d had in a long time. Never thought she of all people would need a random street kid to bail her out. She could still feel the impact of stone fists on her ribs. It almost made her sorry for the people the gargoyles get to first.

So, lesson learned: nobody went up the mountains but priests. And their clients.

“I understand the plan. Get to the pool, drop the bracelet. Simple.”

They sat on a bench facing the sea, each with a newspaper, like strangers. There was no reason a well-heeled Quechal businesswoman would be slumming with the kind of slacker beach bum addict Cat looked like.

Tara’s plan, naturally. Tara had explained it wired on caffeine and talking a mile a minute. Attempting to trace the ship with the trapped zombies hadn’t gotten them anywhere, Kavekana was too convenient a flag to use for too many shipping interests, _but_ Tara had turned up something else, naturally.

A fragment of Seril. Trapped and lost in the swarm of false gods that the Kavekanese peddled to the rich and shady all over the world. Tara had talked Cat into it, as usual. Another way to serve the goddess.

A way to serve that required severing herself from the goddess for the duration, that was the only thing.

Cat wouldn’t have expected to miss Seril this much. The physical withdrawal, sure. She could handle that. She’d done it before. But weirdly, she missed the _company_.

“There are wards,” she said, looking straight ahead. “And watch out for the Penitents.”

“I’ve seen them,” Teo Batan said breezily and turned a page of her newspaper.

Cat gritted her teeth. “If you’ve only seen them patrolling, you don’t know what they’re capable of.” Faster than anything that size should be able to move; strong enough and hard enough to shatter bone and stone. She knew a little about stone. It just figured that the Kavekanese had put their stone to work, too.

“I’ve been briefed. I’m aware of the risks.” Teo kept reading the newspaper placidly. “I’m here to get a job done. Trust me. I know my job.”

Cat licked her lips; she tasted salt, always, here. She thought about mentioning Izza. No. Too many complications. Too much of this plan rested on a stranger’s ability to be slick and persuasive. Cat didn’t trust it. “You’d better.”

The newspaper rustled as Teo turned a page. “Is that a challenge?”

“Look,” Cat said. “I don’t know you, and there’s a lot riding on this.”

“Believe me,” Teo replied, “I’ve closed bigger deals than this.”

Sales talk. Cat shut her teeth tight together.

Another page turned. “Without god-given abilities, even.”

“What’s that supposed to mean,” Cat said.

“Nothing,” Teo said.

 

2.

_Can’t believe how friendly the locals are!_

 

“You said it was going to be easy.”

“I never said _easy_ ,” Teo snapped, pacing.

Cat stood planted in the alley behind her, arms crossed, face tight. She wasn’t great at stoic, this one; then again, on duty she’d be covered in her god-given suit, faceless and implacable. “You said you knew your job.”

“I do. I almost had her.”

She’d had two jobs in that room, in point of fact. She’d told Kai Pohala the truth, partly. There _were_ elements on the Group’s board who were interested in Kavekanese idols to cover their interests as they moved into the Old World. Some people thought of sales as lying, but Teo had always found that she sold most successfully when she believed what she was saying. When she gave her client pieces of truth.

Truths like: Teo hated gods. Truths like: she needed to see the idols, for more reasons than one.

The goddess’s silver bracelet weighed almost nothing, but she was constantly aware of its presence on her wrist. Her scarred wrist.

“You said --”

“I know what I said.” Teo wheeled around to face the other woman, whose eyes glinted green. “I almost had her. I’ve already asked for another meeting. There are other avenues to pursue. I can speak to her supervisor.” The supervisor, Twilling, wanted to talk to Teo anyway. Kai Pohala was new to sales. He was concerned about her progress.

“How is that going to help? If you antagonize her.”

“Not antagonize. Just… apply a little pressure.” Teo’s eyes narrowed as she thought back. She’d been trying to figure out where it had gone wrong ever since Kai had walked out of the room. “She thought she had _me_. She backed off when I asked to see the idols.” Kai’s face had gone flat, blank. She was hard to read anyway, smooth, sharply dressed, poised. Kai had been groomed for confidence, but… not in this role, maybe. Teo knew sales pitches. Kai had delivered hers smoothly, but it had been a little rote, as if she knew the tricks but hadn’t made them her own. Plus, she’d been on edge. Freshly caffeinated, Teo judged, but also a little brittle. She’d been ready to shut it down as soon as Teo said she didn’t want an idol built right away. And she’d gotten angry when Teo questioned her idols: dark eyes narrowed, slight flare of the nostrils. Like she really cared about them. If they were only constructs designed to store people’s soulstuff, like she said, nothing that could care back, why would she care about them?

“The whole point of this is to get to that pool.”

“I know,” Teo said. “I’ll keep working on her. She got distracted partway through and cut the meeting short. I’m not sure why.” It had been a bland refusal, with something else underneath it. “Something about the idols, maybe. Or the pool.”

She could nearly hear Cat’s teeth grinding. The other woman’s hands flexed, uselessly. “Is that something you can use?”

“Maybe,” Teo said, thinking. “I told you, I’ll work at it. You’ll get your shard of goddess.”

“What is your problem, anyway?” Cat demanded.

Teo shrugged. “I don’t like gods.”

Cat’s face twisted, registering confusion. “Then why are you even here?”

“I told you. It’s my job. You have another skilled saleswoman available somewhere I don’t know about?”

Cat scowled. They obviously did not, which was why Caleb had talked Teo into this in the first place.

“Look,” Teo said, adopting a more conciliatory tone. There were times to press your pitch boldly, and times to back off and smooth things over. She still had to work with Cat for the duration, whatever the duration turned out to be. “It’s different for you Alt Coulumbites. Kos is a nice stable god, recent incidents aside. Reliable. Safe. He doesn’t demand blood.”

Cat’s frown faded as that sank in. “Oh.”

Teo smiled sweetly. “I’m glad you see.”

Cat huffed. “Seril’s not like that.”

“I’m familiar with her portfolio,” Teo said briskly. “Moon, stone, poetry -- did you check on the poet, by the way?”

Cat’s shoulders jerked in a shrug. “I listened for a bit. He didn’t sound like much.”

“Lost his inspiration?” Teo suggested.

Another shrug. “Maybe. All the more reason we need to get into that mountain.”

“I _know_.” Teo was abruptly tired of Cat watching her with a god-addict’s desperate intensity in her eyes. “We both know what we have to do. I’ll do my part and you do yours. Be ready.”

Cat frowned, eyes hardening. “Ready isn’t going to do much good unless --”

“Don’t worry. I’ll get you into that mountain.” Teo thought about Kai, and how resolutely she’d charged out of the room, cane and all. “It could happen fast, so be --”

“Be ready. I got it the first time.”

 

3.

_Island time is so relaxing!_

 

“We’re a go,” Teo said. Eyes bright, excitement barely contained.

“When?” Cat asked.

“This afternoon.”

Cat blinked. She’s expected something when she got Teo’s message at the drop, but not this. She frowned. “This afternoon?”

Teo shrugged, smiling. “I told you it might move fast.”

“Just like that?” Suspicion pulled at her. Not that she hadn’t seen this rhythm before – hours of stakeout and then everything at once – but she remembered Izza’s tension lately, and it made her wary.

Teo shrugged again. “She came to my hotel. Where she’ll be meeting me again. Said she just needed me to commit --” Her teeth showed for a moment. “-- a sufficient quantity of soulstuff. To persuade her boss.”

“Uh huh.” Cat stood back and crossed her arms. “She’s using that for something else.” Embezzling? Bribes?

“Maybe. The logic’s sound.”

“Or something else changed.”

“Yeah.” Teo tipped her head sideways, as if considering, and then gave Cat a look “Does it matter what she’s up to? She’s taking me where we want to go. Up the mountain. This afternoon.”

Cat dipped her head the smallest amount, conceding that point. She’d been after Teo to get this done. Guess she couldn’t complain too much now that it was happening. “I guess you’re right.”

“It’s probably just priestly politics, anyway,” Teo said. “She’s not a natural in sales, said she’s used to being at the altar. Their internal affairs don’t have anything to do with us.”

 

4.

_The sightseeing is amazing!_

 

Teo didn’t know what she’d expected to happen when she dropped the bracelet.

On the sun-drenched shores of Kavekana, in smooth corporate hotels and offices, it had been easy to tell herself that it would be simple. That nothing much would happen, that this was Cat’s business, not hers.

Here by the numinous water, where stars and figures spun and rose and fell, she couldn’t convince herself of that, no matter how practiced a saleswoman she was. The water was too clearly something else, making the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

Dresediel Lex, coastal though it was, was a dry city, built on baked earth, blistering in the sun. Kavekana’s mountain gathered around a hole full of water, endless and deep.

She had to remind herself, forcing herself to breathe, that this was the whole reason she’d come here. Once Kai had vanished into the depths of the pool, Teo worked the bracelet over her hand.

Kai was different here, too. She seemed to have left anger and defensiveness behind on the lower slopes of the mountain. The higher they got, the more confidence she exuded. She’d left the too-pat sales pitches behind, as she talked of centers, of beginnings, of myths that were all true, in their own ways. Subjectivity. Fluidity. Belief. Fucking theology.

Kai also moved a lot faster than any woman with a limp and a cane had any right to. Teo had to work to keep up with her. Maybe whatever priestly politicking Kai had gotten mixed up in was going to be more of a problem than Teo had assumed.

Now that was a nasty thought.

She had come too far, and there was too much riding on this. She hesitated while her heartbeat stuttered, and then dropped the bracelet, a glimmering streak of silver.

She hadn’t expected Kai to see the bracelet fall. Somehow, impossibly, she did, and spun herself like a fish and shot upward, a dark sleek shape knifing through the water. Kai reached for the bracelet -- twice -- but it twisted and passed through her hands into the water.

Some little part of Teo wanted to laugh at that, and the expression on Kai’s face.

The moon shone out of the pool briefly, full and smiling, and vanished.

For a split second Teo wondered if that was it.

Then the ground shook, and stone monsters burst out of the walls.

 

5.

_Can’t believe how beautiful the island is!_

 

Teo was still in the rowboat when Cat came back to her.

It was soothing, lying in the rowboat, between the dark water and the dark sky, especially after her time in the Penitent. The boat rocked gently under her, the stars wheeled overhead, and she let it lull her mind while the air cooled around her. Her part in this was done, after all.

Her thoughts drifted. She might even have dozed off a couple of times before the moonlight caught a silver form winging out of the sky.

Teo craned her neck upwards. “Did you get it?”

_Yeah, I got it._

Teo suppressed a shiver at the unearthliness of the voice. “Great. Mission accomplished. Took you a while.”

Cat hung over the boat for a moment, wings beating. Then the silver flowed like mercury, withdrawing. She was only human and grinning as she dropped into the boat, which rocked under her weight.

“Watch it,” Teo warned, shifting her own weight and gripping the sides to keep her balance.

“Kai said thanks. And sorry. Turns out her plan was overthrowing her entire organization,” Cat said.

“Seriously?” Teo asked, impressed in spite of herself. “Ambitious. I hadn’t figured on that.”

“She was probably making it up as she went along. Something about her boss mismanaging finances in order to kill off their idols as they became.” Cat looked up at the moon. Something glimmered in her hand as she rubbed her fingers together. “Real.”

“Real?” Teo took that in, remembering what the girl, Izza, had said before Cat took off with them. “She said that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“It won’t any more. Seril…” Cat trailed off.

Teo was no theologian, but she could put the pieces together. A shard of goddess in their precious pool, breathing life into things that were supposed to be substitutes for gods, not the real thing. Guess gods couldn’t help making trouble.

She remembered the pool, endless and boundless, constructs wheeling in the glowing blue depths while Teo’s lungs quivered for air. She thought about Izza’s gods, the look on her face when she’d begged Cat to help her. Sometimes, just a little bit, Teo envied the god-touched those looks. Izza had had it, and Cat did half the time, and Kai had. That wide-eyed inspiration, that conviction like someone was drunk or in love all at once. It was a lot harder to build your purpose out of yourself, to motivate your own work and actions.

Maybe humans couldn’t help creating gods, either. Maybe that was why they did it, to give themselves purpose.

What did it say about the ancient Quechal, the kinds of gods they’d created?

The long scar on Teo’s wrist made a ridge under her fingers.

“Anyway,” Cat said. “You shouldn’t be in any trouble. You can probably go back to your hotel if you want.”

Teo considered that. She hadn’t checked out properly, not knowing what to expect. They’d been prepared to ditch the island and make their way out under cover of night, if everything had gone sideways. She could go back now, turn in and sleep in a real bed. Maybe even make a deal with the priests in the morning, accomplishing both her jobs.

Maybe later.

“What’s it like, flying?” she asked instead.

Cat’s teeth glinted white in the moonlight. “Want to find out?”

**Author's Note:**

> I was really taken by your suggestion of exploring Cat and Teo's joint mission during FFF, especially since there's so much going on that neither Kai nor Izza is aware of. So this is an attempt to look at their side of the FFF plotline, and at Cat and Teo's clashing roles and beliefs. It also ended up having a lot of my feelings about Teo, who I love to bits. I hope you enjoy it!


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